The End of the Old - Beginning of the New (and De-lurking Day)

Dear Readers,

I thought I would sit down and write a personable letter to you, my readers. But maybe instead of starting off with the official "dear readers" I should say something more like "Hey people!" :D

I've decided to do something I haven't done before, but I've been wanting to do for a while! If you're reading this, say so! Just say your name, where you're from and how you found this blog, you don't have to give your full name or your exact location, (actually you're better to not give all that, it's not that safe to give out full names and locations on a public place) but generally! Such as:

Sarah H.

Alberta

Tell me how the Lord has blessed you this year! I'm looking forward to hearing from you!
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And so, how has your year been? My year, truthfully, has been amazing! I'm so grateful for this year and all the wonderful people that have been apart of it and made it what it was. So many special, special memories from this year. God has been so good. I'm mostly done scrapbooking pictures from the wedding in May. Yes, it took me that long to get around to printing them and doing something with them. I'm still yet to get my pictures printed from my trip to Barbados in January. I'm getting there though, I'm working on sorting them now! :) Looking back though, as I sort pictures I'm so thankful for each one of you who has been a part of my life this year, I thank God for you everytime I think of you.

So much has happened this year. My life is so different from what it was before, and yet so the same too. I know that is a strange way to say it, so different and yet so much the same. It's true though.

I'm loving the falling snow that has finally decided to bring us winter and bring us snow! It's beautiful out, white and fluffy. It makes for delightful evenings by the fire after skating escapades out on the pond. Making me feel really Canadian again! :) Though I doubt I ever stopped.

To recap this year, well, recaping has always been a difficult thing for me. How do I sit and tell about a year in one letter. Especially when thinking of things besides the most prominent or most recent aren't exactly in the foremost of my mind. I remember the faithfulness of God, and His amazing love and care for me. Reading back through my posts here, my journals, and notebooks, I see my struggles, triumphs, pain, joy, confusion, trust, tears, laughter. It's all been there, mixed together. Sometimes I wonder how the greatest pain and the greatest joy so closely intertwine. But they do. And God is faithful. This I know. I can say that my year has been amazing and my GOD faithful.

And as I stand on the Eve of a new year. I know whom I have believed and that HE will keep that which I have committed unto HIM against that Day. He has been faithful in every year past, He will be faithful in this year forward. He holds me and keeps me and guides me every step of the way. I don't know what this year holds, I'm so excited as I stand waiting to find out. As a child handed a gift, can hardly wait to see it unwrapped to see what is before them. So this new year is a gift, that my Heavenly Father is holding for me and bit by bit HE will unfold it before me.

I'm treasuring every moment of my quiet life at home, fixing, mending, sorting, decluttering, doing little projects, finding projects from my childhood that I never completed because I ran into complications, and hoping that maybe I'll be able to finish them now. :) Preparing to dive into the busyiness and business of a new year, of the responsiblities before me, many the same and some different, for all I know may all be the same or may all change as my GOD sees fit.
I'm expecting things to get busier at work, as the company is working on gearing up for a move. That will make me quite a bit more busy there than I have been. That means more hours, which is nice news for me! So I walk on through life... thinking of the song from Fiddler on the Roof

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset,
Swiftly flow the days,
Seeds turn overnight to sunflowers,
Blossoming even as we gaze.

Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset,
Swiftly fly the years,
One season following another,
Laden with happiness and tears.

So it is, time flys swiftly on, tarrying not it's feet for us. Are you ready for what lies before, are you trusting in the God who created all? Are you ready should time cease to be? It is my new year's wish for you, that you will stand firm in the high calling of our Lord Jesus Christ, and follow hard after HIM, pressing for the mark of the prize!

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!!!

Welcome 2010

Just Drop it All and Rest

The journey is too great for thee. 1 Kings 19:7

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? Ps. 56:8

I'm too tired to trust and too tired to pray,
Said one, as the over-taxed strength gave way.
The one conscious thought by my mind possessed,
Is, oh, could I just drop it all and rest.

Will God forgive me, do you suppose,
If I go right to sleep as a baby goes,
Without an asking if I may,
Without ever trying to trust and pray?

Will God forgive you? why think, dear heart,
When language to you was an unknown art,
Did a mother deny you needed rest,
Or refuse to pillow your head on her breast?

Did she let you want when you could not ask?
Did she set her child an unequal task?
Or did she cradle you in her arms,
And then guard your slumber against alarms?

Ah, how quick was her mother love to see,
The unconscious yearnings of infancy.
When you've grown too tired to trust and pray,
When over-wrought nature has quite given way:

Then just drop it all, and give up to rest,
As you used to do on a mother's breast,
He knows all about it - the dear Lord knows,
So just go to sleep as a baby goes.

Without even asking if you may,
God knows when His child is too tired to pray.
He judges not solely by uttered prayer,
He knows when the yearnings of love are there.

He knows you do pray, He knows you do trust,
And He knows, too, the limits of poor weak dust.
Oh, the wonderful sympathy of Christ,
For His chosen ones in that midnight tryst,

When He bade them sleep and take their rest,
While on Him the guilt of the whole world pressed-
You've given your life up to Him to keep,
Then don't be afraid to go right to sleep.

-Ella Conrad Cowherd

Prisoners of Hope

Return to the stronghold, You prisoners of hope. Even today I declare that I will restore double to you. Zechariah 9:12

Call Back

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back-
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance Faith's light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when the forest's roots were torn;
That, when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill,
He bore you up and held you where the very air was still.

Oh, friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face;
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

But if you'll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you'll say He saw you through the night's sin-darkened sky-
If you have gone a little way ahead, oh friend, call back-
'Twill cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.
-Selected

Is Christ only a Tack-On?

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Rev. 3:16

"They have their success; diplomas, degrees, good jobs, nice houses, nice cars, now all they need is Jesus to be complete."

Do you see anything wrong with that statement? Is Jesus just "something" we tack on to our lives after we've "made it" just to finish off our success? Is Jesus just a tack-on extra, or is He our all in all? Do you think you need all these things first and Jesus as an extra? Or do you want Jesus first and foremost and then trust Him to supply you with the extras you need?

I must inform you that Christ is not an extra you can tack on to your life so that you can be saved. He must be your life. The reason for your existence. The strength of your life or else you are not saved. He must be everything to you. It must be that you would sacrifice all but refuse to give up Jesus. Because without Him you are lost eternally. Without Him, hell is your destiny. Without Him, you are alone eternally. Separated from God forever.

With Him you are saved eternally, with Him heaven is your destiny, with Him you are safe and secure in His care eternally. Which would you rather have? What is the most important thing to have? What matters the most to you?

In this country we've been blessed with freedoms that most people in most other countries don't have. In some countries they know that by accepting Christ they are placing their life on the line. But they rejoice because their names are written in heaven. If you were faced with that. What decision would you make? I know we cannot find strength for tomorrow. The Lord gives us strength for each moment. But that doesn't refute the fact that we need to know where we stand. In the little things today that you face in the regularness of your life. Will you lift Him up, or will you deny Him? Will you make Him your all in all. Or will He just be a tack-on extra?

In Matthew chapter 7 the Lord warned that there would be many who would say, "Lord, Lord," and yet would not be saved. Many who cast out demons in the name of the Lord and did miracles and yet their hearts were not right. Is Christ our all in all? Is there pride in our hearts that we say, "Look what we've done!" We have done nothing. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. The Lord has done it all. Has He replaced our garments with His? Let it not be that the Lord would say of us "Depart from me, I never knew you."

Be friends with God. Are you right with Him? Is He all that matters? Does it bother you that you don't love Him enough? Because with our finite minds and hearts we will never be able on our own to love God and worship Him as we should. But the Lord gives grace, He gives love. And one day we will fully understand it all and fully love Him as we should. If we are faithful now by His grace. If we give our lives to Him in complete devotion. He will keep that which we commit unto Him against that Day.

Oh that we would find in God our only safety, our only life, our only, love. Oh that we would hear from His lips, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Don't you want that said of you? I know I do.

Be Still and Know

"Our unbelief is always wanting to some outward sign. The religion of many is largely sensational, and they are not satisfied of its genuineness without manifestations, etc.; but the greatest triumph of faith is to be still and know that He is God."

2 Thessalonians 1

Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;

So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:

Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:

That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.